


Can't Run

by DisConsulate



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Slenderstuck
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2012-07-09
Updated: 2012-07-11
Packaged: 2017-11-09 12:23:19
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,980
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/455415
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DisConsulate/pseuds/DisConsulate
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>(X)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Footsteps hurry through trees. A fence rattles. There is the click of a flashlight. A young troll boy stands alone in a clearing.

Your name is KARKAT VANTAS, and you are scared. No, scared doesn't begin to cover what you are. For the first time in your life, you are experiencing sublime terror of such magnitude that surely if you manage to survive long enough to convey even a shred of it to someone, anyone else, generations later people will awake in a cold sweat, nightmares plaguing their sleep, cursing your name like primitives invoked the name of long defunct deities in times of stress. 

You have a great many interests and skills, and they have done fuck all to aid you, but you might as well list them here as a record of your miserable, fear-laden existence. You were once a computer programmer, although you were never any good at it as you tended to destroy the machines you attempted to fix, which is just as well since you considered yourself a specialist in viruses. It was, in retrospect, a talent that has never helped you when you needed it to, and usually hindered you in times of crisis when you desperately needed for something to go your way. Chalk that up to Fate's sick sense of humor. 

You also like movies, especially those depicting scenes of a romantic nature. You find these to be interesting purely as a sociological study of the cultural norms of courtship behavior. You have an encyclopedic knowledge of movie titles, actors, directors, and producers all associated with this genre of artistic endeavor, and can at any moment schoolfeed any philistine on the finer details of cinematic dalliance. This interest is probably an expression of a deeper psychological need to systematically and exhaustively research areas of your life that you regrettably have limited-to-no actual practical knowledge of, which has the doubly damning effect of ensuring your place as the saddest, loneliest fuck alive, and also landing you bulge deep in your current predicament. But you'll get back to that later. 

Lastly, and most uselessly, you are rather skilled in close combat. You'd rather not dwell on all the multifarious ways this interest has not simply failed you, but sabotaged your efforts to rid yourself of the thing that torments you. So you don't. 

==>Karkat: Check Sylladex 

Not right now. Your sylladex, rest assured, contains a great many things that further chronicle your ordeals that you mean to destroy. They are items that at once informed your journey, and instigated it: a two-fold curse of knowledge and responsibility that you will be damned before you inflict on anyone else. You are going to burn every last one of these pages if it's the last thing you do. You really hope you can at least manage that. 

==>Karkat: Check Strife Specibus 

You've ditched your normal specibus in favor of a heavy but serviceable maglite. Your night vision is pretty good under normal circumstances, but something about the solid weight of your trusty illumination stick brings you comfort. In addition to flashlightkind, your strife deck also comes equipped with crowbarkind, and you can't thank enough gods for all the times it's gotten you out of trouble. 

==>Karkat: Check Surroundings 

Typically for an adventure like this, you are currently outside in the forest at night. Behind you is a chain linked fence, yet more forest, and after a bit a road that leads back to civilization. Before you, a winding path snakes through the trees, disappearing into the shadows. On the ground ahead of you is a page. 

==>Karkat: Examine Page

It's a poorly rendered map of the forest with a number of landmarks penciled in among the trees. You take note of a mobile hive unit, a presumably abandoned manufacturing facility of some kind, a circle of rocks, a red tower, and ...

==>

Your destination.

==>

You store the page in your sylladex, which you note with some resignation is getting full. You would be able to carry, in addition to your folio of unspeakable materials, your map, a light snack, and a collection of items of especial significance which is all you'll say on them at the moment, maybe three more pages and a cinder block. It might be nice to be hefting a cinder block around. You figure by naming a seemingly random, pointedly specific object you could somehow force the hand of dramatic irony with a foreshadowing implication. It's never worked before, but maybe you just haven't been random or specific enough.

==>Karkat: What Was That?

You shine your flashlight around, checking for suspicious characters skulking among the trees. This area looks clear, but you can't shake the feeling that you were being watched. 

==>Karkat: Quick! Behind You!

Look, you just got through sweeping over this area, and there is nothing to be HOLY SHIT WHAT IS THAT FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK

==>

Oh. No. It's just a spooky looking tree. That's all. Nothing threatening about it except its vaguely menacing appearance. 

==>Karkat: Set Out

You walk on down the path, no preparatory breaths, no drama, no longing for your warm recupercoon, no melancholy thoughts about all those you've lost. Nothing but grim determination, and the cold, mortal fear sitting in the pit of your digestive tract, gripping your blood pusher, and paralyzing your thinkpan.

You take three steps and have to stop. You can't do this. You're crazy. You should just sit here and wait for death to take you ~~always watching can't run help please god help mustn't look no no no no no~~.

==>Karkat: Snap Out Of It!

You slap yourself actually quite hard. You've got a job to do, dammit, and you won't give up until you see it through! Just look around you! What are you so afraid of? The trees? The crickets? The moons? For once in your life, grow some shameglobes and get on with it already.

==>

You walk. You keep your light trained on the path ahead of you.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A young troll boy hurries off through the trees. The moon overhead casts green light on the forest. The leaves whisper in the breeze.
> 
> Years in the future, in a different universe entirely, a young human boy switches off the viewport of the trans-timeline terminal. He knows the rest of the story from there.


	2. Page 1

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> You came into this forest at night on a suicide mission for two reasons, and the second you have already gone on about at great length. The first reason is that, as much as you have combed old paper diaries and computer logs, there are still parts of your folio that are missing. You've good reason to suspect that you'll find the missing three pages tonight.
> 
> Or you might die.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A cricket chirps. A young troll boy jumps at the sound, waving his flashlight wildly around looking for the source. A bush rustles, but he ignores it. He is nervous and shaking, and can't hold the beam steady. A shrieking hootbeast flies silently overhead, its shadow eliciting another twitch from the troll boy. He drops his illumination stick on the ground.

==>Karkat: Find The First Landmark

You stumble over your own feet and fall face first into a puddle of mud. If this were any other night, you might be mortified on behalf of any trans-universal or omniscient observers of your sordid story, but given the circumstances you figure your clumsiness will be justified by your untimely demise at the hands of...well.

You look up, wiping the muck off your face and find yourself at the first landmark: a white and blue mobile hive unit attached to a mechanical automatic four-wheeled device. Its single window is shuttered, and the four-wheeled device is rusting. Clearly it hasn't been driven in a while.

==>Karkat: Inspect Surroundings

The trees loom overhead, rather closer than you're comfortable with. The leaves block out the light of the green moon, and obscure the pink moonrise far to the east. The forest has grown silent, except for the occasional cricket chirp.

==>Karkat: Quick! Behind You!

Shit! Okay. Nothing there. Nothing to be scared of. You need to stop it with the jump scares already: tensions are high enough as it is.

==>Karkat: Inspect Truck

You shine your illumination stick into the cab of the four-wheeled device. The insides are dusty and full of cobwebs. There is a box of tools in the passenger seat, and the glove compartment is open. Beyond that, it looks empty.

==>Karkat: Open Toolbox

You climb in on the driver's side, brushing loose a half dozen spiders as you go. One of them bites you on the hand, which hurts like you've just been stabbed by a pair of small fangs and pumped with a mildly irritating amount of venom. You open the toolbox, sucking on the bite. It's empty except for a screwdriver and a pair of three quarter inch screws.

==>Karkat: Captcha Screws & Screwdriver

You captchalog the screws. The screwdriver takes up another space in your precious inventory. Practicality says you should ignore these items that waste sylladex space. Genre savviness says that an upcoming puzzle requires this specific set of tools to solve.

==>Karkat: Inspect Glove Compartment

Inside the glove compartment is a yellowing insurance booklet, a pretentiously-titled 'Truck User Manual', and a set of keys. You take the manual and the keys, maxing out your sylladex's capacity to carry useless random shit. Who knows, maybe you'll find a use for the manual later on.

==>Karkat: Check Outside

Still the same dark, empty forest full of trees. Still the same green and pink moons. Still the same crickets chirping. You exit the four-wheeled device and carefully shut the door behind you, in case the noise startles something.

==>Karkat: Enter Mobile Hive Unit

The door is locked.

==>Karkat: Use Keys On Door

You unlock the door with the keys you just picked up, solving this simple puzzle with ease, almost as if the whole door locking mechanic was just an arbitrary delaying tactic on the part of some malevolent being forcing you to jump through hoop after hoop for its sick amusement. The key ring was right fucking there, it didn't even require any stretch of your impressive cognitive abilities to find. Not that you're complaining, since you're on a very tight schedule, but it'd be nice to see an actually difficult conundrum in a game just once.

==>

You open the door to the mobile hive unit. A puff of stale air wafts past your face. The insides are dark, and your illumination stick does little to penetrate the shadows. Your every instinct screams for you to turn around and run, but you force your feet to carry you into the gloom. The floor is linoleum; there is a sagging recupercoon at the back full of dry, sticky sopor. The shuttered window is over a miniature food block, the contents of which are all rotting and crawling with maggots. You open the shutters, letting in the light of the pale moon, and see on the floor, tucked under the corner of the recupercoon, a page. Just what you were looking for.

==>Karkat: Acquire Page

You snatch up the page triumphantly and read its contents. Your triumph switches abruptly to anger and disappointment.

==>

This is just a blank sheet of paper. There's nothing special or mysterious about it. You discard it without a second glance.

==>Karkat: Look Around, But More Closely

You take a second look around, in case there was something you missed before. There's the recupercoon, sitting on top of a filthy rug with an upturned corner. There's the food block with its maggots, and a couple of word magnets on it. There's a pile of pine cones you ignored before that might warrant a second look, and of course the window letting in green moonlight.

==>Karkat: Didn't You Say The Moon Was Pale?

No that would be completely idiotic. Everyone knows the moons are respectively green and pink.

==>Karkat: Check Pine Cones

You turn over the pile of pine cones. It's a messy rout: no pine cone is safe from your searching claws. You can hear the laments of the parent trees as their children are carelessly tossed aside in your quest for the truth concealed by their innocent forms. Finally, you find it: another page.

==>Karkat: Acquire Page, For Real This Time

D(X) N(X)T KN(X)W.  
NEVER SEEK.  
AV(X)ID TRUTH.

==>Karkat: Look Outside Again

You look out the window to check if the coast is clear after captchalogging the page. 

The shadows have shifted with the moonrise, and now the floor of the forest is shadowed more deeply. The pale moon shines brightly through the trees, and even the crickets now are silent. The hair on the back of your neck is raised, and you feel it's time for you to leave.

==>Karkat: What Was The Color Of The Moon Again?

Oh. _SHIT_.

==>

You slam the shades down and run to the door to lock it. It might buy you a half a minute at the most.

You quickly assess the situation, looking for options.

==>Karkat: Check Inventory

You've got the page, the screwdriver, the two screws, your folio, your map, a light snack, and a collection of items of especial significance.

==>

A shadow passes over the shades.

==>Karkat: The Rug! There's Something Under The Rug!

You throw back the dirty rug to reveal a trap door. A padlock keeps it shut. The hinges are accessible from the inside.

==>

You left the keys outside. _FUCK_.

==>Karkat: Crowbarkind! Go!

You attempt to pry open the trapdoor with your trusty crowbar, but your efforts fail. You hear the keys jingle in the lock.

==>Karkat: Screw Finesse! Smash It To Pieces!

You flail at the trapdoor for about five seconds without doing anything. The lock rattles a little.

==>Karkat: The Screwdriver! Take The Hinges Off!

You don't have time for this! You don't have time to come up with anything else! You take out the screwdriver and, hands shaking, attack the hinges just as the lock clicks behind you. Working fast, you free one hinge. The door creaks open.

==>Karkat: Don't Look

You stop, arms trembling, eyes dilated, fighting the urge not to look behind you.

==>Karkat: Don't Look!

You turn a little, ready to glance quickly over your shoulder just to make sure it's safe. You know it's not safe. You know there's only one thing that would have followed you into the forest, waiting until you were comfortably paranoid. There's only one thing that _should_ even be here. And if you look now, you're dead.

==>Karkat: DON'T LOOK!

You have to know. You were going to die anyway.

==>

(X)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The young human boy adjusts his glasses and logs on to pesterchum. None of his chums are online at the moment, but he opens a memo titled, 'shenanigans'. Mid-way through, he hears the ping of a new message: someone just logged on, and is now trolling him.
> 
> conspiringTheorist began trolling ectoBiologist!  
> CT: Are y(X)u satisfied n(X)w?  
> EB: *siiiiiiiigh*  
> CT: I d(X)n't understand y(X)ur frustrati(X)n.  
> CT: I've been c(X)mpletely h(X)nest with y(X)u.  
> CT: I've answered all y(X)ur questi(X)ns. I've sent y(X)u all my l(X)gs. What m(X)re c(X)uld y(X)u p(X)ssibly want?


	3. Page 2 (1/3)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A firm hand smacks the troll boy once about the face. The troll boy splutters, regaining his composure. Crouched before him is another troll boy, dressed in black, eyes obscured by green goggles, a white operator symbol adorning his shirt.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> EB: i already know how karkat dies, but all of your logs keep cutting off just when it seems like he's going to get killed.  
> EB: all i'm saying is that it feels like you're very deliberately keeping things back.  
> CT: Fair en(X)ugh.  
> CT: The thing is, if y(X)u want to kn(X)w m(X)re, y(X)u're g(X)ing t(X) have t(X) ask me s(X)me (X)ther time.  
> CT: I d(X)n't exactly have an excess (X)f it at the m(X)ment, y(X)u see.

==>Karkat: Confront Aggressor

You absolutely flip your shit. Who the fuck does this douchenozzle think he is, sneaking up on you at a time like this? You thought you were dead, that your life was forfeit, that everything you worked toward up until now was going to end in a frenetic frenzy of agonized slaughter. But no, you get dropped on by the one troll you had hoped to be rid of for good weeks ago. 

==>

The other troll makes a shooshing motion at you. You shut up and pay attention.

==>

The two of you carefully exit the mobile hive unit. Your companion immediately runs for cover in the trees.

==>Karkat: Don't Just Stand There. Follow Him!

Not like you really had much choice there. As much as you can't stand the guy, he knows more about this mystery than you do, and is frankly better at surviving. If it hadn't been for his unwanted intervention, you'd probably have been dead a long time ago. Besides, he's running away from the source of the white glow, which is precisely where you want to be.

You follow after, brushing aside foliage as you make your way into the darkness.

==>

Past more trees.

==>

Over a dry stream bed.

==>

Through a clearing and--WHOOPS

==>

In your haste, you forgot the first rule of traversing the thickets, which is this: Never take your eyes off the ground. You've been ensnared in some kind of wire trap. The other troll doesn't even pause to look back, and disappears.

==>

Jegus. Fuck that guy.

==>Karkat: Examine Trap

It's a snare, meant to tighten as you struggle, inevitably with the intent of ruining your leg and your ability to escape. Fortunately, you only tripped and fell. With a bit of delicate fingerwork, you should be able to loosen it enough to pull your foot free.

==>Karkat: Disarm Trap

You get to it, and soon your foot is free. It must've been razor wire or something sharp, because your hands are now cut up, and your ankle isn't much better off. You rifle through your sylladex for a Fashionable Med Kit, a memento of your late good friend Kanaya. In many ways, her death was your fault, which fills you with sadness and self-loathing as you search for bandages in the silk interior of the kit.

==>Karkat: Flash Back While Applying First Aid

carcinoGeneticist began trolling grimAuxilliatrix!  
CG: WELL, HERE I AM RETURNED FROM THE SINGLE WORST SIDE QUEST EVER PERFORMED IN THE HISTORY OF POINTLESSLY DISTRACTING ACTIVITIES.  
CG: I, THE HERO AND PROTAGONIST, SWORN TO SAVE THE DAY AND DESTROY ALL SPIKE-SHELLED FOES, WAS ENTRUSTED WITH A TASK MORE INSIPID AND MIND-NUMBING THAN TAKING OUT THE PRINCESS'S DRY CLEANING.  
CG: I COULD HAVE REFUSED ON THE GROUNDS THAT CLEARLY MY EMPLOYER IS SO MIND BOGGLINGLY DEFICIENT IN BRAIN MATTER AS TO WASTE MY HIGHLY SOUGHT-AFTER AND VALUABLE SKILL SET THAT THE ONLY WAY THEY BECAME THE SOLE MONARCH OF A KINGDOM OF FUNGUS CAPPED WRIGGLERS WAS THROUGH SOME COMBINATION OF NATIONAL PITY AND A DEEPLY INSIDIOUS POLITICAL PLOY TO KEEP THE TRUE LEADERS HIDDEN FROM THE PUBLIC EYE.  
CG: BUT AS ALWAYS IT FALLS TO ME TO BE THE BIGGER TROLL AND BITE THIS SHIT-STAINED BULLET.  
CG: I HOPE THIS IS THE RIGHT CASTLE. IT WOULD BE A NATIONAL EMERGENCY OF EPIC PROPORTIONS IF THE PRINCESS WASN'T IN THE RIGHT FUCKING CASTLE FOR ONCE.  
GA: Perhaps You've Been Playing One Too Many Of TA's Games.  
CG: OH YES, LET'S TALK ABOUT HOW I'VE BEEN CLEARLY WASTING ALL OF MY PRECIOUS TIME AND ENERGY IN THE MENTAL CESSPOOL THAT IS VIDEOGAMING WHEN I COULD BE DOING MORE IMPORTANT THINGS LIKE WEEDING THE PRINCESS'S ENORMOUS FUCKING LAWN RING OR COMBING THE MANE OF THE PRINCESS'S RETIRED MOTHER GRUB LUSUS.  
CG: IN CASE IT HAS ESCAPED YOU DUE TO MY ADVANCED USE OF VERNACULAR, YOU ARE THE PRINCESS IN THIS METAPHOR. IT IS YOU. AND I AM YOUR RUST-BLOODED ETHNIC PLUMBER-STROKE-PERSONAL FUCKING ASSISTANT-STROKE-BODYGUARD.  
CG: CONGRATU-FUCKING-LATIONS, I AM YOUR ETERNAL THRALL.  
GA: She Could Use Another Grooming.  
CG: FUCK YOU I WAS BEING SARCASTIC.  
GA: Oh Were You. It Must Have Escaped My Dull-Witted Attention. I Do Apologize Most Sincerely.  
GA: So Am I Right In Understanding You Have Completed The Duty I Set For You?  
CG: OH MY GOD YES. IT'S NOT LIKE I DIDN'T JUST GET FINISHED CONSTRUCTING AN EXTENDED METAPHOR, LADEN WITH REFERENCES AND PERSONAL JABS, IN AN EFFORT TO COMMUNICATE THAT VERY FACT.  
CG: THIS HAS BEEN A GREAT DAY FOR INTERPERSONAL COMMUNICATION. LET'S GIVE OURSELVES A ROUND OF APPLAUSE FOR OUR ABILITY TO SPEND LITERALLY SIX MINUTES WADING THROUGH SNARKY HORSESHIT TO CONVEY A SINGLE GODDAMN THING, VIZ. YES I FOUND THE DAMN FLARP GUIDE YOU BORROWED FROM OUR MUTUAL PSYCHOPATH ACQUAINTANCE, NOW WHAT?  
GA: Did You Read Its Contents? Remember I Said It Was Very Important You Don't Read What Was Written Inside It.  
CG: YES I REMEMBER. ONCE AGAIN, WE DOVE INTO A VERITABLE OCEAN OF HORSESHIT, BATTLED SHIT MONSTERS AND SHIT STORMS, NAVIGATED WAVES OF SHIT THAT THREATENED TO DROWN US IN THEIR UTTER SHITTINESS, FINALLY SIGHTED THE SHORES OF A STRAIGHTFORWARD FUCKING THOUGHT AND GAZED IN WONDER AT THE REVELATION THAT APPARENTLY, FOR SOME REASON YOU REFUSE OUTRIGHT TO REVEAL, IT'S CRITICAL TO THE VERY FOUNDATION OF MY EXISTENCE THAT I DO NOT LOOK INSIDE THAT FLARP MANUAL.  
GA: Oh, Good. I'll Rest Easy Tonight, Knowing You Didn't Read It Then.  
CG: WELL.  
GA: Karkat. Is That A Squall I See On The Horizon?  
CG: NO FUCK OFF.  
CG: THE MANUAL MAY HAVE BEEN OPEN WHEN I FOUND IT, AND I MAY HAVE CASUALLY GLANCED AT THE PAGE BEFORE SLAMMING IT SHUT AND LOCKING IT AWAY FROM PRYING EYES FOREVER.  
GA: That Is Most Definitely A Squall. But What's This? The Winds Have Changed! Now It Is A Veritable Hurricane Of Snarky Horseshit.  
CG: JEGUS FUCKING CHRIST.  
CG: OKAY.  
CG: I ADMIT IT.  
CG: I ALSO FLIPPED THROUGH A FEW OTHER PAGES, AND BASICALLY MEMORIZED EVERYTHING I SAW IN A COVERT EFFORT TO RIP SOME UNDERSTANDING OUT OF THIS STUPID SITUATION.  
CG: AND BY A FEW OTHER PAGES I MEAN COVER TO COVER.  
CG: I MAY HAVE READ THE ENTIRE THING.  
GA: I. Am Speechless.  
GA: Karkat What Have You Done?  
CG: WHAT? YOU WERE RIDING MY BULGE ABOUT THIS FOR WEEKS, BUT EVERY TIME I ASKED WHY YOU GOT ALL CAGEY AND DEFENSIVE. IS IT AT ALL IN ANY WAY SURPRISING THAT WHEN I FOUND THE FUCKING THING I'D TAKE A LOOK INSIDE TO SEE WHAT ALL THE GODDAMN FUSS WAS ABOUT? DON'T YOU THINK I WOULD BE A LITTLE SUSPICIOUS WHEN A FRIEND WHO HATES FLARP ASKS ME TO RETRIEVE A FLARP MANUAL SHE BORROWED FROM A COMPLETE NUTCASE THAT ALSO HAPPENS TO BE THE REASON FOR SAID HATRED OF THE GAME?   
CG: REALLY, YOU SHOULD'VE BEEN EXPECTING THIS FROM THE START.  
GA: Okay, I Admit I Went About That Entire Situation In A Decidedly Suspect Manner.  
CG: YOU FUCKING THINK SO? GEE, I WOULDN'T HAVE GUESSED!  
GA: But There Was A Reason For It.   
GA: Maybe It's Nothing, And I Was Being Reticent With No Cause.  
GA: I Certainly Hope That Is The Case. Yes, Let's Say That Is What I Hope And Leave The Matter At That.  
CG: NO. FUCK YOU. YOU DON'T GET TO STRING ME ALONG LIKE THIS AND LEAVE ME WITH NOTHING.  
CG: I WANT A FULL FUCKING EXPLANATION. YOU WILL REMAIN IN YOUR SEAT UNTIL YOU HAVE DRAFTED A FUCKING DISSERTATION ON WHAT WAS SO GODDAMN IMPORTANT ABOUT THAT MANUAL THAT YOUR FRIEND KARKAT COULDN'T KNOW IT WAS FULL OF SCRIBBLES AND SYMBOLS THAT A WRIGGLER COULD MAKE BETTER SENSE OF. I EXPECT IT ON MY DESK BY FIVE O'CLOCK YOUNG LADY.  
GA: Karkat I Am Being Perfectly Serious.  
CG: SO AM I. I DON'T MAKE THESE RANTS FOR YOUR AMUSEMENT, YOU KNOW. THEY ARE EXPRESSIONS OF THE FULL RANGE OF MY COGNITIVE PROCESSES AND REACTIONS AND FUCK YOU FOR AVOIDING THE QUESTION.  
GA: Fine. I Will Humor You. Tomorrow Night. But Right Now Is Not A Good Time.  
CG: RRRRRRRRRRAAAAAAAAAAAAGGGGGGGGGGGHHHH.  
GA: I Understand It Is Frustrating, But It's Better For Both Of Us If You Just Send Me The Manual And Forget About This Whole Thing.  
GA: Can You Do That For Me, Karkat?  
GA: Please?

==>Karkat: Flash Forward

You stand up, brushing dust off your pants, hands and leg bandaged. You take a bite of your light snack and examine your surroundings.

==>Karkat: Examine Surroundings

You are in the middle of a clearing. Immediately to your right is an old, knotted tree, dead and probably rotting as well. You can no longer see the pale light through the trees, which is comforting. A pair of tall boulders lie nearby. The remains of the wire trap are near a bush at the edge of the clearing.

==>Karkat: Check Map

You still have yet to reach the manufacturing facility and the red tower. The boulders near you don't appear to be the circle of rocks, but it's hard to tell. Whoever drew this was clearly no artist.

And of course, there's your destination. But one thing at a time.

==>Karkat: Check Knotted Tree

This tree is gnarled and full of holes that could hide just about anything. You're a bit hesitant to stick your hand in blindly to feel about, however.

==>Karkat: Shine Light Into Nearest Knot

A startled screeching hootbeast assaults you from within. You drop your illumination stick on the ground as it flies off through the trees.

==>Karkat: Check Vacated Knot

Looks like a boring empty nest.

==>

Your illumination stick flickers a little. You check the batteries, hoping none of them are cracked. You'll have to be careful with how you use your flashlightkind from here on out. 

==>Karkat: Climb Rocks

You scrabble up the nearest boulder. You are now afforded a better view of the surrounding area. 

==>

Off in the distance you can see the roof of the manufacturing facility. You can tell that's what it is by the three archaic smoke stacks jutting up out of it. A little closer, you can see what might be the red tower. For the moment it looks like the pale glow has vanished, if it's even visible from this altitude, so you could safely make your way to one of the two locations in your view. Where will you go?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> EB: fine. i'll play more time shenanigans with you.   
> CT: I w(X)uld appreciate that.


End file.
